The most common mesh-related complication experienced by patients undergoing transvaginal polypropylene synthetic slings for stress urinary incontinence (SUI) and transvaginal pelvic organ prolapse (POP) repair with mesh is vaginal mesh erosion. More than half of the patients who experience erosion from synthetic mesh require surgical excision which is technically challenging and risks damage to healthy adjacent tissue.
Over 200,000 sling procedures for female stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse are performed annually in the United States. Additionally, there are over 800,000 hernia repair procedures performed in the United States each year that use the same polypropylene (prolene) mesh and that suffer from very similar complications to that of the SUI and POP patients. During these procedures, a strength-bearing mesh material consisting of non-absorbable polypropylene is placed inside the body for muscle reinforcement. In a significant number of procedures (˜10%), complications from the polypropylene mesh occur, including mesh erosion and dyspareunia. The mesh may be cut by a sharp instrument and realigned or removed during surgical revision. This process is tedious as it involves cutting the mesh scaffold from interwoven healthy tissue. However, damage is typically caused to such surrounding healthy tissue which causes an extensive recovery period and extra pain in the patient.